Snowdonia, designed by Tony Boydell, is a game that
flew under my radar entering Essen 2012. However, several good reviews and
ratings by attendees caught my attention in the days following.

In
Snowdonia, players are building a railroad track
from Llanberis, Wales to the top of Mount Snowdon (Wyddfa), the highest mountain
in Wales. The year is 1894 and the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company
Limited has been formed to build a branch line from Llanberis to the summit.
Each
player represents a company providing labor to construct the railway. But,
unlike other train games, players all work on the same train route, excavating
and clearing rubble before laying track and constructing stations as they
proceed up the mountain. They will also have to contend with the changing
weather and obtain resources necessary to lay track (iron ore and rails), to
build stations (stone), and to hire additional workers (coal). During the game,
various events will occur which also interfere with plans and drive the game to
its end.

Basically,
Snowdonia is a worker placement game. Players will
allocate all of their workers to various "action" boxes. Then they will resolve
the actions in "action order". Finally, they will prepare the board for the next
turn. Sounds vaguely familiar doesn’t it? Yet, it is how this happens that makes
this game unique. (More on that later.)

By laying
track, building train stations, fulfilling contract cards, and advancing your
"surveyor" along the train route, players score Victory Points. The game ends
when the last piece of track has been laid to Yr Wyddfa. At that point,
the player with the most VPs wins.

First, players
must lay out the railway route and station cards around the outside of the game
board. (Interestingly, the "train route" is not printed on the game board but
consists of cards laid in a certain order around and off the outer edges of the
board.) Seven train station cards are placed around the game board. A varying number of "track cards"
sandwiched between each of the station cards. After
the track and station cards are taken care of, rubble must be put on the track and
station cards. Each track and station card has a number imprinted from 2-5
indicating the number of rubble cubes it will hold. Other cards (Contract,
Action, Train) are then sorted and put in their holding areas as well.
Weather is checked (determined by those Contract cards) and markers used to indicate the weather for the first three turns.

Each player takes a set of
player cubes and pawns of their color choice (black, purple, pink, green, blue).
One pawn begins in the Llanberis train station printed on the board. Another
pawn is situated in the “Pub”. The players keep the other two pawns in front of
them. These pawns will be their "workers" to be assigned during the Worker
Placement phase of the game. Finally, a number of resource cubes (representing
iron ore, stone, coal, and events) are tossed into a bag and a set number of
these cubes are then allocated to the “Stockyard” printed on the game board. These
are the resources available to the players to build track, stations, and
purchase trains during the game. Thus, set-up can take a bit of time and is one
of the few "nits" I found with the game. So how does the
game play?

Worker Allocation - Each
turn a player will place their two workers (and if they pay a bag of coal they
can hire a third "temporary" worker from the Pub), one worker at a time, on an
Action Track. This continues until all players have placed all of their workers
(either two or three). The Action Track provides seven boxes (printed squares
representing seven different actions) in which workers may be placed:

1.Stockyard (obtain resources from
the stockyard)

2.Excavation (clear rubble)

3.Works (convert rubble to stone
and/or iron ore to steel rails)

4.Lay Track (in areas with no rubble)

5.Build (either purchase a train OR
build part of a train station)

6.Site Office (obtain a Contract
Card)

7.Surveyor (move their Surveyor to
the next station up the mountain)

Each Action box
holds a limited and varying numbers of workers depending on the number of
players. For example, the “Surveyor” box will hold an unlimited number while other Action boxes will accommodate from 2
to 4 workers. Once all
workers are placed, the Action Resolution begins.

Action Resolution - Each
Action Box is resolved in the order listed above (Stockyard first, Surveyor
last). Within each Action Box, workers are activated in the order in which they
are placed as follows:

Stockyard -
Each worker in the stockyard allows a player to take up to three
resources (iron ore, stone, coal) from the stockyard. These are taken in any
combination desired except that only one coal resource may ever be taken.
Resources may run out before a worker’s turn in which case he gains no
resources.

Excavation -
Players may remove a number of rubble cubes from the
route cards, beginning with the card closest to the Llanberis station. The
amount of rubble removed is governed by the weather and may be modified by an
owned train and/or a contract card a player owns. Removed rubble is placed in
front of the player who excavated it.

Works -
Players may exchange three iron ore cubes for one steel
track and/or two rubble for a stone cube. This action may be taken up to three
times by the player for each worker pawn placed here (provided he has the
resources available to do so).

Lay Track - Players may return one steel track bar to stock and
construct a track on a cleared route space (all rubble has been removed from the
route card). They do so by flipping the card over to its "track" side and
placing a cube of their color on the track card. This will provide a number
of victory points at the end of the game equal to the number printed on the
card. The number of tracks a player may lay on a given turn is limited to the
number of workers he placed in the box, the number of steel track bars he owns
and the type of weather for that turn.

Build - The
build action allows players to either purchase a train (at a cost of one or two
steel bars) or to build a section of a train station. Each player may own only
one train at a time and, if wanting another train, must turn in the train they
own before paying for the new one. Different trains offer varying abilities and
advantages to the owning player. Train station cards contain areas that may be
built by turning in stone or steel track bars. When a portion of a station is
‘built’, a player places one of his playing cubes on that section to indicate he
built it. Each area built will provide a varying number of victory points at
game's end.

Site Office -
Workers placed here allow the player to take a contract card from those lying
face up in the Site Office. Contract cards provide both a game-end bonus for
completing certain requirements (amount of track laid, stations built, etc.) and
a one-time-per-game action that may be taken by the player during the action
resolution phase.

Surveyor - All
players placing workers here may move their Surveyor along the Station Route.
For each worker a player placed, he may move his Surveyor to the next Station up
the mountain from Llanberis. The higher the Surveyor goes on the mountain, the
more victory points he will score at the end of the game.

After all
actions have been resolved, players prepare for the next game turn. New contract
cards are revealed, upcoming weather is determined and new resources are drawn
from the bag and placed in the stockyard. There are two other elements in the
game that have a great impact on how each game is played: Events and Weather.

An Event is
triggered during the clean-up phase when new resources are drawn from the bag to
go in the stockyard. Each white cube drawn (of five possible) goes on the
event track and the event it covers will occur. Events may remove rubble from
the route cards, may lay track even on an uncleared route, may stop construction
on a particular train station and may require maintenance of players' trains.
Each of these events impact upon what players will be able to do.

Weather,
determined by the Contract cards drawn during the "clean up" phase, affects how
much rubble may be removed on a turn and how much track may be laid. On a given
turn, a player will be able to see the weather for the current and two following
days thus allowing for some future planning. Sunny weather increases the amount
of track that can be laid and rubble that may be removed by a worker. Rain
decreases those amounts. Fog completely halts all excavating and track laying
for that turn.

The game ends
when the last track has been laid (whether laid by the drawing of an Event cube
or by a player action). Victory points are then tallied. Most victory points
wins.

I found the
components to Snowdonia to be excellent, with a
sturdy game board, lots of wooden cubes, pawns, train "bars", weather and game
markers, and nice, coated game cards. Overall the game leaves the impression of
quality and careful design. Several elements of the game itself also caught my
attention.

First, it
accommodates 1-5 players. The solitaire opportunity is a positive and I prefer
games that accommodate at least five players (and this game scales well).
Second, it is a "train game" and I have enjoyed most train games I’ve played.
Third, it is set in Wales, a rather exotic setting to me as I know of few games
with a Welsh setting. Fourth, who can resist a train game that begins in
Llanberis and ends in Yr Wyddfa?! (I had never heard of the mountain or the
railroad before seeing this game.) Fifth, the game is semi-cooperative in the
sense that everyone works on the same railroad, clearing rubble, laying track
and building pars of the stations. Sixth, the game itself works against the
players by sporadic events that lay track, clear rubble and stop construction of
train stations thus robbing the players of precious victory point opportunities.
Seventh, weather (rain, fog, and sun) plays a significant role in the progress
of the game. These elements set Snowdonia apart
from other worker placement games I have played.

Snowdonia is a game of forecasting and preparation.
You must get in rhythm with the game and be prepared for what is coming! The
challenge is to anticipate which events are imminent (they come in a
prescribed order but not at a prescribed time), what other players will do and
the approaching weather. Being prepared for each of these eventualities is the
key to success. I am terrible at each of these and find myself nearly always a
day late and a dollar short! But for me, after five games of
Snowdonia, that’s both its challenge and allure! -
- - - - Frank Hamrick